Abstraction
by Sora with an S
Summary: <html><head></head>Game rules are abstractions, things to make gameplay simple... so why am I living my life by the rules of a game I have never played? Inspired by "Dungeon Crawling in Chicago"</html>
1. Character Creation

Have you ever woken up and not known where you are?

Usually, a quick glance around, a moment to shrug off the drowsiness, and it all comes back to you. Here? Not so much. For one, I was lying on the ground in some dark room I didn't recognise. And when I saw dark, I mean I couldn't see my hand in front of my face.

More than slightly creeped out (I sleep in my underwear, so being in a strange room was even weirder then it would be otherwise) I groped in the dark for the wall, looking for a light switch.

Upon touching some kind of flat surface in the dark, it lit up with the words "Select your game." With a start, I realised that though the (screen?) was lit up, I still couldn't see anything else in the room.

Which should be impossible. Wouldn't the light from the screen be enough to see by?

Still creeped out, I thought aloud "Game? What kind of game?" The sound of my own voice in the darkness helped to sooth my nerves. "You mean like D&D or something?"

As I finished talking, the text vanished, shortly replaced by the stylised text "Dungeons and Dragons" that I had seen once on a book my friend owned. It even had the "Wizards of the Coast" logo floating above it.

I blinked in surprise, now really nervous. What was happening here didn't make any sense. What were the odds this thing was set up to react to those exact words?

"Select edition" replaced the game iconography. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 3.5, 4th and 5th were my options.

Quick confession: I have never played D&D. Ever. Any edition. I only said it out loud because one of my friends has been playing recently. So I had no idea which would be the 'best' and just went for the middle one, touching 3.5.

It asked me to pick my 'Ability Scores', which were similar enough to Fallout's 'S.P.E.C.I.A.L.' System that I felt reasonably comfortable. Pity I didn't say Fallout when asked for a game, I rock that FPS. Anyway, I went for 14, 13, 13, 16, 12, and 10 as my scores. (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma respectively. Just so you know, 10 is base human average.)

"Select class" followed after. A _really_ long list, with well over a hundred items appeared below, spread out over several columns.

….

What, was I supposed to pick the class that represented me the most? The class I aspired to be? Was this some really strange invitation to a game session? I had no idea which classes were good ideas, or bad ones. I made a small noise of frustration. I didn't want to be the healer, dang it!

Skimming the list, I saw "Monk" listed. Good, if they were what I thought they were, then Monk should be simple, straightforward and offensive, just beating up the guy you didn't like. I touched Monk.

The screen changed to "Select Race". This was a no brainer, I touched "Human" as soon as I spotted it. "Template(s)?" Replaced the previous text. Considering that things like "Ghost" and "Half-Dragon" were on this list, I didn't think that mucking around with it was a good idea… but I saw "Lycanthrope", and hey, werewolves are cool, right?

"Select Feats" appeared.

I didn't even know what a feat _was_. Were they like Fallout Perks? "Is there a tutorial I can access?" I asked the screen hopefully, to no avail. "Difficulty slider?" Still no change. "Options menu?"

This time the screen dimmed, and brighter text was superimposed over the top. Ugh, there were a ton of on/off switches here, for options whose function I was limited to guessing. What the heck did "Spontaneous Divine Spellcasters" mean? Did that mean that spontaneously there would appear spellcasters who were simply divine? I switched that one on out of curiosity.

"Spell point system" and "Recharge magic" were left alone, as I really had no idea what they did.

"Gestalt" looked promising. That meant… multiple things working together, right? Some help would be very welcome here. I switched that on.

Ugh, still lots of options left. Skim, skim, skim… There was an entire section called 'transparency', with sub-options like "Magic-Psionics", "Magic-Incarnum", and so on. Transparency would imply they would go though each-other, which I didn't want. So I turned the entire 'Transparency' section off.

Okay, um… "Bloodline"? I looked closer, and it listed sub-options like "Major Gold dragon", "Minor Troll" and such. I exhaled. "What's recommended?" I wondered, and to my surprise the screen underlined the "Intermediate Fire Elemental" bloodline. Shocked that the screen was being helpful, I chose as it had suggested.

Back to the main options menu, I asked "Anything else I should change?" The screen underlined "Fractional BAB" and "Multiclassing XP penalty", so I switched the former on and the latter off. Satisfied with my choices, I went back to the feat selection menu.

Once more, I cheerfully asked "Okay, what do you recommend?"

The screen what not as useful this time. For one thing, it underlined dozens of the hundreds of feats I could choose from. For another, it had also opened up another menu underneath the first one labelled "Flaws", and underlined three of them. What the heck were flaws?

I glanced though the feats suggested to me. There was still an awful lot – "Kung Fu Genius"? That sounded helpful for a Monk. I guess that's why the screen suggested it. I picked that one.

Ugh…. Still so many to choose from. At this point I just wanted to finish whatever this was meant for and go back to where things made sense. I closed my eyes and picked a feat at random. Opening my eyes back up, I saw that I had picked "Darkstalker", which wasn't ominous at all. In response, the Feat menu had gone dim, but hadn't disappeared. The flaw menu was still there…

"Forget it" I said. "Just pick what you think is good already and turn the lights back on."

"Skulker" and "Vulnerable" flashed, then the flaw menu vanished, the feat menu fully lit once more. "Sacred Vow" flashed, then "Vow of Poverty". The menu name "Feats" changed to "Bonus Feats" and the options dropped from hundreds to a couple dozen. The screen picked "Nymph's Kiss" and "Monastic Training".

Speeding up, as though the menu was looking forward to finishing as much as I was, the screen picked Rogue as my second class (Wait, what? Why do I have a second class?) before assigning Skill Points, which once again looked pretty similar to Fallout's system.

With a whirring sound and a blink of surprise from me, the screen… apparently printed my character sheet. I grabbed the paper, noted that it appeared to be laminated and that like the screen, I could read it in the pitch-black room. I tucked it under one arm.

"Begin game?" The screen asked.


	2. First Encounter

I blinked, and the room was gone. Instead, there was a library, with a shortish man standing about a metre away. And this is literally all the information I was able to observe before he pulled a knife on me.

What happened next? Well… have you ever watched the Matrix? Remember that scene where Neo gets a cassette tape installed in his head, and he suddenly exclaims "I know Kung-Fu?!" A little like that. I suddenly found myself adjusting my posture. I straightened my back, moved my feet further apart to get a firmer stance, and raised my first into a ready position. I didn't think about it, I just did it when I saw the edge of his knife.

The thing is, I did this so quickly, I didn't have time to think about what I was doing. When my brain caught up, I immediately fell into fight-or-flight. I didn't want to fight, so… flight it was. My 'opponent' seemed almost as surprised as I was (the realisation he was fighting a girl in her underwear might have had something to do with that), so I took the advantage and legged it, running around him.

His reactions weren't as dull as I'd hoped, 'cause as I was leaving the range of his knife he brought it round in a wild strike, catching me across the back. That _burned_, and the pain was intense. The corners of my vision turned black, but a surge of adrenalin reminded me that I _really_ didn't want to wait around for another hit. Blinking back tears of pain, I continued to run.

Problem was, there was a _second_ person in the room whose presence I had failed to notice till now. Noticing me heading for the door, she waved her hands in some wield way and a solid wall of ice filled the doorway. Skidding to a halt, I whirred around wildly. Knife-guy, still turning around. Weird runic-looking circle where I had first appeared. Window. _Window!_

Internally thanking God that the window was on the other side of the room from knife-guy, I put foot to the floor and _bounded_. Behind me, I heard ice-lady yell a phrase my limited knowledge of magic placed as the verbal component of a _Celerity_ spell, which let the caster muck around with time to perform an action very quickly, effectively taking their turn early. Wait, when did I learn about _magic?!_

She used this extra time to cast another spell, one whose verbal component I didn't recognise. I felt a surge of humour bubble up within me, and I almost fell down laughing. The pain in my back helped me clamp down on _that_ impulse. 2 meters, 1… it was a nice large window, so jumping though it was easy. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a second-story window. The same fighting instincts that adjusted my posture inside caused me to tuck my head into my knees, effectively curling into a ball.

Hitting the ground still _hurt_, but somehow I remained conscious though the haze of agony I was in. Standing to my feet, I almost lost my balance and lurched to one side. Good thing too: knife-guy had gotten his bearings and hurled his knife at me, only missing due to my sudden tilting. Somehow, I found the strength to run out of the alleyway I'd fallen into, blood running down from the cut across my back.

I was in serious luck. The alleyway led onto a main road, and there were plenty of pedestrians around. Near-naked lady covered in her own blood ought to … attract ….

At this point, the relief caused me to release my iron grip on my will, and I succumbed to the pain.

"She got away!" Ice-lady screamed. "How could you let her get away?!"

"Shut up. I got one attack of opportunity and one ranged attack." Knife-guy rebutted. "And I nearly one-hit KO'd her on the first. You got three spells off – guess which one of us will look incompetent in front of the boss?"

"You keep telling me I need to do battlefield control more often!"

"One good _Fireball_ and the girl would've been toast!"

The ice-girl rubbed her upper arms. "So what're we gonna do now? The cops are gonna be on this place soon!"

"We leave." Knife-guy responded evenly. "And we leave them some 'presents' when we do…"

When I came to, I was handcuffed to a chair on one side of an interview table, the kind you might have seen in cop shows. I was wearing a plain grey T-shirt and pants, and my back didn't hurt at all; both very good things. The handcuffs were worrying, though. Had I unknowingly done something wrong?

There was a document lying face-down on the table before me. Flipping it over revealed that it was my character sheet from the dark room that started this mess, to my surprise. In one corner in bright red ink was "+4080 XP". What, just from running away? Was 4000XP a lot? Apparently, because the words "Level up" were written in blue ink at the top of the sheet. If I levelled up just from running away from those guys, how powerful were they?!

Before I could take a closer look at my sheet, the door to the surprisingly well-lit room opened and a police officer entered. I straightened in my chair, noting that his uniform didn't look like the Western Australia uniform I was expecting.

"Right, miss." He opened without preamble. "Name."

"Uh..." I took a second to collect myself. "Charlotte Murray."

The officer took a note on his clipboard. "Ms Murray, why were you admitted to the San Francisco General Hospital with a laceration to your back and traces of Conjuration magic in your system?"

I blinked. The San Francisco hospital? That would explain the American accent. Wait… "You know about magic?" I asked. Heck, _I_ didn't know about magic: not really. This game I had unwittingly agreed to was doing weird things, this entire world might just be some virtual environment.

"The Dweomer Investigation Department does. Now answer my question."

I told him as much detail as I could remember about what had happened, starting after I pressed the "Begin Game" screen. He paid close attention when I mentioned the ice-lady using magic and when I mentioned the circle on the floor, actually looking up from his notes.

After I finished speaking, he started. "There is no registered spellcaster living in the street you were found on." He held up his hand to forestall my objections. "Tomorrow morning, we shall be conducting raids looking for traces of unauthorised magic use. You shall accompany our teams and confirm the house you escaped."

"Don't you have to ask me first?" I protested out of reflex.

The cop stared at me. "Miss, in all likelihood you were summoned into this countries boarders unwillingly." I blinked again, was that possible? "However, in the eyes of the law, you are still an illegal immigrant. Compliance is the easiest way to avoid prosecution."

He didn't need to put it like _that_. I sighed. I'd try to read my character sheet in bed. Hopefully I'd have a better idea on my abilities by the time the raid came.


	3. First rest

That night, I had a good long stare at my character sheet. It made little sense to me, mostly because I didn't know how the numbers stacked up. Was an Armour Class of 22 good? One good thing is that my sheet listed brief explanations on what my feats did. I was right, they are like Fallout's Perks.

Darkstalker let me sneak even around creatures that would normally auto-sense me, like a dog might do with scent. I checked, the screen had given me skill points in 'Hide' and 'Move Silently', so stealth was a tactical option for me. I'd need to remember to get my Ninja on tomorrow.

Kung Fu Genius simply let me use my intelligence to power my monk abilities, rather than wisdom. As my INT had somehow ended up as 20 and my WIS as 12, this was really for the best.

Sacred Vow and Monastic Training (my Monk bonus feat) were both feats used as prerequisites for other feats. Sacred Vow was needed for Vow of Poverty, Monastic Training for a feat I hadn't yet taken.

Vow of Poverty was an absolutely amazingly powerful feat. It gave me "Exalted armour", bonus "Exalted" feats, and a laundry list of other benefits that would be unlocked as I levelled up. It had a massive drawback, naturally: I had to live in poverty for the rest of my life, and in particular I could never use magic items.

I stared long and hard at that feat, before shaking my head. I'd worry about that later.

My last feat, "Nymph's Kiss", gave me an extra skill point per level, as well as a +1 on my 'saving throw' against spells, and a +2 bonus on Charisma-related checks. It also made it a rule that I was in an "Intimate relationship with a good-aligned fey".

That one I'd worry about now. Did my character have a Leprechaun boyfriend somewhere? I'd been given Martial instincts to fit being a Monk, but couldn't actually remember training. Would this feat work the same way?

Fretting, I got up and paced around in the tiny room the D.I.D. had given me to sleep in. Now that I wasn't running on adrenalin, the whole "I've apparently been sucked into a game world, or at least the US of A" situation was calling in its long-due freak-out.

I pinched myself. Nope, this is really happening… wait. I blinked. My skin felt weird.

My room had a small sink and, more importantly, a mirror. I stood in front of the sink, and noted that I had to bend down to see my face in the mirror.

I stared into my… fire red eyes? Huh? My eyes were supposed to be brown. Mentally zooming out, I relaxed a little when I saw the rest of my face looked like it was supposed to. A little more flushed, but otherwise the face I'd been born with.

Standing back a little, I examined myself as a whole. I looked… lankier. Wait a second… grabbing my Character Sheet, I looked up the top where it listed my height.

6' 3''?! The heck?! I was 5' 2'' before! Why had I put on 13 inches?! No wonder I was having trouble looking in the mirror! Looking up, a nearby entry caught my eye. My species was listed as "Spellwarped Human (Intermediate Fire Elemental)".

I had picked Human. With the screen's help, I had picked the Fire Elemental bloodline (which was probably where my red eyes came from). But what the heck was with this Spellwarped thing! The only other race-related option I had picked was Lycanthrope!

I squinted. Come to think of it, I couldn't see Lycanthrope on this sheet.

Oh.

Had I accidentally picked "Spellwarped" instead of Lycanthrope?

…

When my schedule permitted, I was going to hunt down every 3.5 book I could find and read them! Not knowing how these rules worked and what my options did was infuriating.

Getting into my small bed, I carefully thought about my frustrations at the situation; so that I went to bed furious, not crying myself to sleep.

* * *

><p>The next morning bright and early we left for the building I had run from the previous day. Not gonna lie: wasn't looking forward to that. But that circle on the floor was most likely how I came to be in that building, ignoring the whole 'game' setup. Even if I couldn't go home though it, they might be using it to pull other people to them, which I wasn't going to let happen.<p>

Sneaking back into my 'entrance point' wasn't difficult. The copper with me simply opened the door using a hook on a fifteen-foot pole. Incidentally, it was the same officer who interviewed me last night. Was D.I.D. understaffed? Anyway, with the _Fireball_ trap on the door set off from a distance, we walked right in. I was confidant. I had a plan. I was sure that I was operating at full potential.

And as I walked into the building, I remembered that I'd forgotten to level up last night.


	4. First Dungeon

Walking confidently into the room ahead of the Officer turned out to be a bit of a blunder, as I tripped the pit trap behind the door immediately. My increased height saved my life here; without it, I would have never been able to grab the two sides of the pit to avoid falling in. This feat of gymnastics ended up with me facing straight down, which gave me the rather unpleasant view of how far down I would fall.

Without another word, the officer stepped around the pit, grabbed my arm firmly, and pulled me to safety. Shaking slightly, I got up to thank him but he was already tampering with the next door. I shook myself. I was a fully-fledged PC now! A simple dungeon crawl should be nothing to me!

A rather unhelpful internal voice reminded me of all the times my characters have died in dungeon crawlers.

Looking toward the door, currently emitting a toxic-looking gas as my escort poked it with his pole, I tried to reassure myself. It would be just like Sword Art Online!

I always hated Sword Art Online.

The next few rooms proceeded like that. The hallway had hidden blades that descended from above, the stairway rotated in such a way as to slam you into the ceiling, and the second story entrance room had strange glyphs carved into the walls. At each trap the officer would neutralise it in some way, and I would stand around being basically useless. Did I even deserve XP for this?

Four traps later, we had made it to the room I had initially appeared in. The same "Fullmetal Alchemist" looking circle I had appeared in was, now that I could examine it closely, carved into the floorboards.

"This the room?" The officer asked gruffly. I nodded. He walked over to the circle and ran a finger over its edge. "Looks like an extra-planar sink-hole. Anything passing though the astral nearby gets pulled in." He moved his pole around so that its hook was in-between two of the floorboards the circle was carved into, and pulled. With a grunt of effort, he pulled one such floorboard up, nails and all, destroying the circle.

"That should stop any more incidents." He grunted. Straightening, he looked at the three doors leading out of the room. "Stay here and don't cause trouble." He ordered.

I blinked, and before I could respond he had already exited the room, presumably to search the rest of the building. I scowled. Surely I wasn't completely useless? Besides, what did he expect me to do while he was gone?

Well, come to think of it, this was a library…

I walked to the sides of the shelves, looking for labels. G… Titles such as "Game theory" and "Galactic Civilisations: Strategy Guide" made up the shelves. On a hunch, I looked up 'D'.

There, in glorious hardcover, was the 3.5 edition Dungeons and Dragons "Players Handbook". Smirking, I grabbed the title, opened to 'combat mechanics', and started reading.

Turns out, D&D really isn't a game you can play by yourself. At minimum, you need a player and one 'Dungeon Master', who is kind of a cross between a storyteller and a referee. Unlike a video game, in D&D you can try anything you can think of, and it's up to the DM to decide what happens when the rules don't cover a situation. But my game didn't have a DM, as far as I knew…

Hmmm… that screen had been pretty intelligent after I asked the right questions…

Unfortunately, the Players Handbook was a 'Bare Bones' sort of book, covering the basics. Half the stuff on my character sheet wasn't in here, I'd need to read other 3.5 books. Just my luck this library only had this one.

Halfway through the 'Magic Spells' chapter, I heard a light buzzing, like dragonfly wings, right behind me. Once again, my body straightened almost involuntarily, rolling to the left just as the buzzing passed through the space I just vacated. Having read the Players Handbook, I now had a name to go with this sensation.

Roll Initiative.

I tried to spot the source of the buzzing, but I couldn't see a thing. The sound was coming from my right though, so I swept my fist though the area. Missed. The buzzing dashed forwards again, and this time I didn't dodge in time. I felt a small stabbing pain near my right abdomen.

I was defiantly under attack, apparently by an invisible creature. The pain wasn't bad, but I had no desire to experience the Death of a Thousand Cuts firsthand. I swept my leg though the area I thought to be occupied. Missed again. On the bright side, so did my attacker.

Was there some way to boost my accuracy? Not really, my only accuracy-related ability, Flurry of Blows, made me less accurate, not more. Tiring to mix things up, I bodily charged though the enemy space. Nothing, my ears telling me the enemy moved before I did. This was getting ridiculous. Another stab to my shoulder.

Moving back a step, I listened furiously for my opponents distinctive buzzing. Hearing it move forward, I swung my fist to meet it.

Hit.

There was a sickening _crunch_ sound as formerly invisible blood splattered over my knuckles.

Blink. Blink-blink.

Why was there a small person with wings lying on the floor there? Was she bleeding? Why was she bleeding?

A couple more precious seconds passed as I stared dumbly at the 2 foot battered body.

All of a sudden, I found myself moving frantically, ripping strips off my shirt and tying them around the bleeding areas as best I could identify them. Dang, dang, dang… I'd almost certainly broken bones, and lots of them. She was still breathing, which was small comfort given the amount she was bleeding by. And she might have hit her head, or have internal bleeding, or any number of things!

Now I wish I had played a Healer class!

Wait. Didn't I have a level up waiting to be completed? I scrambled around for my character sheet, pulling it out of my pocket, and tapping the 'Level up' text as soon as I saw it.

The room went back to the pitch-black that had started this 'adventure'. Across a wall, familiar text appeared: "Choose class".

"Don't care!" I shouted. "Just make me a healing class, _quick_!"

Options scrolled across the screen so fast I couldn't see them and filled themselves in just as fast. All of a sudden, the text changed to "Remaining level ups possible. Continue to level up?"

"No!" I yelled at the screen. "I need to heal that girl. Now!"

The room lit up again. Once more, I had a Matrix cassette tape moment. I linked my thumbs together, both hands palm down, and placed them on the injured Pixie girl.

"מרץ פחותים" I breathed in Hebrew.

The girl let out a deep, shuddering breath, before breathing in again. Before my eyes here wounds were slowly, but surely, healing shut.

I rocked backwards, letting out a deep breath of my own. O God, I swore, never again. No killing ever. Never ever. Call me a wuss after _you_ get actual blood on your hands, knowing that you put it there.

The door opposite the one the Officer and I had entered though opened up, causing me to let out an "Eep!" Out came said Officer, his clothes smoking slightly.

"What have you got there?" He demanded gruffly.

"Uh… Pixie! I think… It attacked me, but then I healed it with magic! So it's fine now!" I babbled, flustered from the adrenaline still leaving my system.

"Did you now?" The officer asked. Without waiting for a reply, he pulled out a pistol from his belt and shot the Pixie square though the forehead.

My mouth fell open, and I felt distinctly like I had been kicked in the gut. I looked around the find the pistol now centred on _my _forehead.


	5. Base of Operations

It is my most sincere wish that none of my readers have ever been held at gunpoint. If you have… you will know the bone numbing terror I felt. I had 18 Hit Points, 4 of which I had lost in the previous battle. So while I _might_ survive the first two gunshots, three if I was lucky, the forth would almost certainly kill me. At point-blank range, there was really no way to miss.

And of course, there was the simple fact that a pistol was nearly pressed against my forehead. My mindset wasn't _that_ into game stats yet.

"W-why?" I spluttered out. I hadn't really done anything _wrong_, why was a police officer pointing a gun at me?

The officer's eyes grew frustrated tinged with exasperation, like he had to answer that question all the time.

With practised speed, he recited: "Due to the extremely varied nature of magic and the various ways its use can be masked, any person capable of Spellcasting is, by default, considered a criminal and enemy of the state." He refocused his eyes on me. "Anyone not born a government spellcaster is to be executed immediately, their death prioritised over all other activities."

Ah. Ah ah ah.

I glanced at the fey girl. Are the magical creatures dead by default as well?!

Wait.

"So, magic is uncontrollable so you're going to kill all the spellcasters?" I quickly said. That was going to be the start of a larger rant, anime-style, where I was going to point out what he was doing was wrong. Unfortunately, that tactic…

"Yep." Said the Cop simply, and fired his pistol.

…doesn't work so well when the guy had no doubts about the righteousness of his cause.

My field of view had gone dark. Was it because I was dead and darkness was what awaited the newly deceased? No, wait, I'd just closed my eyes on reflex.

I opened them to find the bullet crumpled up against a faintly glowing transparent gold pane floating in front of my eyeballs. Similar panes glowed nearby to the one that had saved me, tightly wrapped around my body before quickly fading from sight.

What?

My mind raced with questions as quick as it could think them up. Had the officer magically "pulled his punch"? Had someone stepped in to save me? Those panes had this, this radiance about them that reminded me of a quiet funeral service, or a particularly rousing sermon. More than that, they felt like they were _mine_ on some fundamental level.

Was this… my "Exalted armour"? To be honest, this was really shocking. My martial instincts, my new lanky appearance, even the healing spell I'd just pulled off… none of them didn't seem as real as this pseudo forcefield that had just saved me from a bullet between the eyes. This, to me, was the first real _proof_ that this laminated sheet of paper had power over me.

It was exciting of course, I mean who didn't want superpowers as a kid? But it was terrifying at the same time, because _someone had just shot at me_. Ice wall? Throwing knifes? Straight out of fantasy, easy to say they couldn't have really happened. Gunshots? Those were _real_.

I looked into the officer's eyes. To my discomfort, they showed annoyance and nothing else. He moved his trigger finger forwards, ready to fire again.

Almost lazily, the thought occurred to me that I saw large gaps between the exalted armour plates, and that the officer had seen them as well.

Adrenalin suddenly surged into my blood, and I kicked out with my legs so forcefully it looked like I'd just spasmed. With that, my body shot upwards.

BANG.

I couldn't feel any pain, so that probably meant that he'd missed. At least, that's what I would have thought if I could think of more than "Run, hide, ESCAPE". Unlike the first time I'd escaped from this room, I was in one of the smaller rows between the bookshelves, rather than the large corridor down the centre of the room. As the officer was at one end of the row, I was forced to run in the other direction. This led away from the window but towards the door we'd entered though.

Some of the more headstrong members of the audience might be wondering if I was going to run from every fight. The answer to that was a definite yes so long as I was fighting guys who massively outclassed me. My brain was locked in fight-or-flight, and I didn't want to fight a man armed with a pistol barehanded – crazy Kung-Fu skills or no, pistols were designed to kill people. Hands weren't.

Back down the staircase – BANG. Agh! Painpainpainpain – BANG.

The second shot missed, I think. Regardless, it jolted me back into running, with me trying to ignore the intense, searing pain whenever I moved my left arm.

I did have one advantage – I was focused entirely on running, whereas the officer needed to aim his pistol. I was down the hallway before the officer had cleared the stairs. As I entered the entrance room, I saw the pit trap that had nearly gotten me on arrival. The part of my brain affected by my character sheet must have been more powerful than I thought, because I had a crazy idea. The hallway and the front door were at right angles in such a way that the pit wasn't actually visible from the hallway. So, with the officer thundering behind me, I deliberately jumped into the pit.

There were spikes at the bottom, which I'd seen when I'd nearly fallen in earlier. None hugged the walls, so I did; performing a little jump and a move that seemed to come from a new, gymnastics-oriented part of my instinct package. I got behind a spike and held my breath. The sound of the officer running came and went as he leaped over the pit and out the front door. He hadn't even looked down.

After a few seconds to make sure he wasn't doubling back, I let out a quiet sigh. I placed my hands on myself like I had done with the pixie just before, and breathed the same words. My arm started to feel better almost immediately.

"Ah, is that officer gone? Good, good."

The voice was so unexpected, and I was so tense, that I fainted dead away. My carrier as a hero was off to a _brilliant_ start.


End file.
